Nailed It!

You know sometimes when you know you have picked the right present for someone?   Like, 48 colors of nail polish for one of my daughters……..

On the birth of our Lord!

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light!

Merry and Bright

I have enjoyed our Advent theme as we journey from darkness to  light together, each week adding more light into our worship space. 

I am grateful for a sense of light that I am carrying in my heart. In spite of much sadness in our world, our country, our family, I am more confident than ever that indeed the light DOES shine in the darkness, and the darkness has not put it out.  (John 1:5)

June Apples

Rather than calling the roll all of the time, I tell my DH and kids that I am having dinner with the Mean Moms, or lunch with the 4 Season Friends, or am headed to dinner with the Weenie Moms.  Pretty much, those key words spoken, they know exactly who I am with. There some friends who are in more than one group. And some friends are not really in one of my “groups” (or “gangs” in the case of the Mean Moms.

Tonight I had dinner with my Apples in June friends.  I’ve linked to this video in the past. The first time I heard Carla Gover sing it I cried all the way through.  I’m older now, and my gatherings have become less hurried, the kids are older, we find more time to talk about who we are and how we are making it. Especially with the Apples In June friends, we cut to the chase and dispense with the small talk.  And sometimes, just their company and the chance to lay down my load does indeed make me feel “magical, wild, and free”. More often than not, I just feel rich and fortified.

 

Nap Nook

Our sweet little pug dog Odie went blind a couple of months ago. It happened overnight and nearly broke my heart.  I have adjusted, realizing that he is not in pain and that this will not shorten his life.  At first he was very befuddled and hesitant to move about, but he is slowly getting back to his little impish self.  Early on, one evening I couldn’t find him.  Luckily he is such a loud snorer, I could follow the sound and found him behind the bathroom door tucked into DH’s clothes that he left there after his shower.  Since then, this happens several times a week.  I guess he wanders around and finds a soft place to land that smells like his favorite person in the world.  Now, I don’t have the heart to gather his laundry until after Odie is tucked in for the night in our bed.  Anything that makes him feel more secure is okay by me. 

Welcome Back Old Friend!

Oh my!  Just the sight of this and I can hear the steady ding ding ding and see the rotating patterns on the wall.  Somehow I had forgotten about angel chimes!  I loved them.  Not so much on putting together the sharp and bendable little tin parts, but oh so worth it!  Okay, I’m ordering one now.  And I hope it comes….tomorrow. 

Some major Alicia link love

I wrote this post a little over a year ago. Refresh your memory. You need to read that post to go to the next one.

It is fitting that I mark my return to Wednesday Link Love with a new link to the wonderful Alicia’s blog and this beautiful post. Go there now and read it.  Really.

And then, of course you will want to read the next 7 weeks of posts and look at the pictures.  I have always found her blog to be a sensory treat, with her beautiful photographs of her lovely home and the beautiful things she makes and the sweet creatures she shares her life with.  Today’s post is just so beautiful and so lyrical that I have to insist that you also hop over and read it too.  And when you are finished reading it, go back and read the last  paragraph all over again.  It is pure delight.  I love the blogging world and the amazing women I have come to “know” because of it. Okay, just read this passage one more time.

Sometimes I have to go out by myself to get some stuff done and then, alone in the car, driving my old familiar routes out to the post office, the fabric store, over the little mountain whose village-like view I like to treat myself to in every season, I usually cry a little bit, thinking about everything that came before, how hard it was, and how hard some things are, and how tender life is, for everyone. Everyone you meet. December, with its fog and dark trees, and delicate branches waving in the cold, and its white berries hanging heavy from wire-thin black branches waving in the cold, makes me feel soft and tearful. I wind the car through the trees. The cold air smells of cedar. The route is old but I am new. I hurry to return home even though I'm trying to go slow, to let myself go slow enough to feel it all, to settle into every mile of this journey. Every season of this life. This glowing, golden gift

Primed and ready

Last year my friend Beth encouraged me to join in on a 12 Days of Christmas Art Swap that she has been participating in for several years. It was so very fun that I have looked forward to being a part of it again all year.  Each of the women in the swap make 12 gifts with the only rule being that it has to be able to fit through a mail slot.  Each of us was assigned a day and given the addresses of all of the participants.  I am Day 7.  The person who is Day 13 makes one for each person to open on the day that is their own gift day so that you have a gift to open each of the 12 days.  Mine went postal last Friday, and AFTER Day 7 I will post a picture of what I made. 

I bought a special box to hold my  gifts in as they arrive, and 8 of my little gifts are already poised and ready to be opened on their given day.  It is so fun to have something to look forward to every day.  I’ll be sharing what the gifts are as they are opened, but I can already tell you that every single one is a treasure!

It’s beginning to look a lot like……August

There is just something very wrong with having to run the fans in the house as I decorate for Christmas.  In Kentucky.  On December 3rd.  I saw a dandelion popping its little yellow head up when I walked the dogs tonight. 

I put Christmas afghans on the arms of our living room chairs tonight in good faith that there will be a chilly evening when we want to hunker down beneath them while we drink our hot chocolate.  Holding out for some “cozy”!

Dark into Light, Rich into Richer

Today we entered into our Advent journey- a journey from darkness into light. 

A friend reminded me today of an old practice that I have fallen away from.  For a long time I had a standing “date” to meet a good friend online each night around 10 and we would chat about our day, often mentioning what “made us rich” that day.  When my girls came along, this also became a part of our night time ritual.  I would ask, “What made you rich today?”, and one of the girls was the scribe and we kept track of it in a little notebook.  Somewhere in this house I feel sure those notebooks that we filled with riches are still floating around.  While I can’t put my hands on them right now, I can tell you with certainty that you could look through every page and you would be hard pressed to find mention of anything that money could buy.  There were plenty of cardinal sightings and visits with friends or books we were reading.  But never once a mention of “stuff”.  How I hope that my girls never reframe their understanding of wealth.

That said, this is my list for today:

• Walking into the church and finding it lovingly prepared, the stage fully set, to guide us through the journey of Advent together. 
• Dinner tonight of wonderful Ethiopian food shared with a large group of church friends and our Eritrean refugee family in a local restaurant.  It was toasty and cozy inside and the food was great and the conversation interesting, and we were all beautiful at that big table.
• A brief street corner visit with neighbor friends.
• Feeling well fed and well loved and ready to rest to rise to meet a new week.

Thanks be to God for the wonderful gifts of this day.

Oh, it’s cryin’ time again……

Last night I got weepy looking at a site I used to make our Christmas cards.  All of those sweet families, all different configurations of family, all looking so happy and so dear to each other.  And the sight of my own design, with my own dear family tipped the balance into a full fledge cry.  Yes, it’s that time of year.  Everything I see, every person I see, every song or snippet of conversation I overhear are all conspiring to make me tear up.  I’m just a sap that way.  And something about the season of Advent just makes me take my heart out of its protective shell and hold it right out in the palm of my hand for all the world to touch.  And in some tiny tiny tiny way, isn’t that indeed what God did for us at Christmas?

So, would you care to join me for a little sap?